Man sent to prison for setting girlfriend on fire

The victim, weeping hard, fled the courtroom before the sentencing of the man who set her on fire.

Shannon D. McGee

But not before she publicly forgave him.

"This is hard for me, because I love him, and he hurt me," Ayonna Williams said in court Tuesday.

Williams spoke at the sentencing of her boyfriend, Shannon Deldris McGee, 34, of Muskegon Heights. McGee earlier pleaded no contest to assault with intent to do great bodily harm less than murder and being a fourth-time habitual offender.

In the Dec. 22 attack, while the two were arguing, McGee threw rubbing alcohol on Williams and set her on fire. The 29-year-old victim suffered burns to one side of her face and legs. She was hospitalized afterward at the burn unit of Spectrum Health Blodgett Hospital in Grand Rapids.

As she spoke in court, Williams faced 14th Circuit Judge James M. Graves Jr., then turned toward McGee. He stood about 10 feet away wearing shackles and a blue jail uniform, flanked by his public defender, Al Swanson. McGee has been jailed since Jan. 4, when police found him hiding in an attic and arrested him.

"He will never know how much physically he has scarred me and my family," Willliams said, in tears. "Even after all that, I forgive you, Shannon."

Williams then dissolved into weeping, couldn't continue speaking, turned and walked quickly out of the courtroom. "The maximum sentence!" a woman yelled.

Speaking to the judge a few moments later, McGee apologized. "It wasn't my intention," he said of Williams's injuries. "I wouldn't want to see this on my worst enemy."

Arguing for the toughest possible sentence, Muskegon County Assistant Prosecutor Marc E. Curtis said Williams spent months recovering from her injuries and still suffers from them. He said she was confined to her home for a long period after her release from the hospital, to prevent infection. Curtis noted the burden that Williams's care put on her mother, who has taken care of her.

Graves followed the prosecutor's recommendation.

"While your victim forgives you, this court does not," Graves told McGee. He imposed a minimum sentence at the top end of state guidelines. That meant a minimum prison term of 11 years two months, with a maximum of 50 years if McGee never gets parole. McGee got credit for the time he's already spent in jail.

Muskegon Heights police said the two got into an argument after she returned to their Seventh Street home from Christmas shopping with her mother.

Police said McGee accused her of being with another man and began to physically assault her, punching her in the forehead. After she went into the bathroom to put rubbing alcohol on an injury, police said he followed her and continued the argument. McGee then threw rubbing alcohol on her and set her on fire. After dousing the flames, he called a relative to take her to the hospital, police said.